


Too Soon To See If I'm Happy In Your Hands

by leiascully



Category: House M.D.
Genre: Community: cuddy_fest, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-07-07
Updated: 2007-07-07
Packaged: 2017-10-03 06:24:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leiascully/pseuds/leiascully
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cuddy/everyone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Too Soon To See If I'm Happy In Your Hands

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline: N/A  
> A/N: For [**lissie_pissie**](http://lissie-pissie.livejournal.com/), written for her prompt for [**cuddy_fest**](http://community.livejournal.com/cuddy_fest/). Four double drabbles and a quadruple drabble for a total of 1200 words. Big thanks to [**queenzulu**](http://queenzulu.livejournal.com/) and [**savemoony**](http://savemoony.livejournal.com/) for the readthroughs (even if I declined all your commas, Pen. Mwah). Title from Sara Bareilles' "Love Song". Happy Smut Tuesday!  
> Disclaimer: _House M.D._ and all related characters are the property of Shore Z, Bad Hat Harry, and Fox. No profit is made from this work and no infringement is intended.

She likes Foreman because he doesn't complicate their time together with a lot of stupid questions like "Are you secretly in love with House?" or "Should we be doing this?" When she kisses him, he doesn't close his eyes, because he's exactly the hard bastard he wants her to believe he is. She likes that. No possibilities for "I love you"s that neither of them really feel. She and Foreman are filling time with pleasure, that's all. It's more entertaining to work out her frustrations on a mattress than it is to hit the treadmill: takes less time, too, and fucking Foreman is getting one over on House. Foreman's irritating persistence and precision pays off between the sheets. She isn't surprised when she comes so hard she almost screams.

Everybody wins. Except that they've already lost, because as she straddles Foreman's broad body, she can feel House's eyes burning through her shoulder blades, though he's three thousand miles away at a conference.

She picks up her clothes. Foreman watches her implacably. The next day at work isn't any different from any other Houseless day, except her thighs are sore.

She likes that, but she doesn't need it.

\+ + + +

The thing about Cameron is that Cameron _knows_. Knows what it's like to be a woman in a hospital full of overbearing men, knows what it's like to be alone, knows about the power of cleavage and high heels and the way it feels to slide a hand between her thighs at the end of a long day. Cuddy likes to think she's kissing Cameron because Cameron is the girl Cuddy used to be and she might as well bring some joy to a heart that's going to be broken one way or another. But Cameron tips her face up and closes her eyes, trusting like Cuddy knows she never was, and wisdom doesn't travel by osmosis, no matter how slick their mouths and fumbling fingers.

She lets Cameron into her bed, because she doesn't want to see Cameron's apartment, imagining photos and postcards tacked to the fridge with cutesy magnets. Cameron doesn't make the sheets smell like a man. They have an understanding. Except Cameron stays over, once, and makes chocolate chip pancakes. Cuddy knows she was right.

Cameron's a luxury. She's a kitten who belongs to somebody else, a sweet diversion with ineffectual needle-claws.

Cuddy won't get attached.

\+ + + +

Chase is a different story altogether. Cuddy isn't sure what she expected: a toadie, a sycophant, a wimp. But Chase, once you get him out of House's orbit, is a competent, confident person, and what's more, he's a flirt. He hands her a glass of wine with just the right touch of deference, letting his fingertips brush hers. He smiles at her, teeth bright against that improbable but natural-looking tan.

She takes him to bed. His body is as smooth as his charm as he moves against her, and he surprises her by taking control, his hands firm on her hips as he guides her. She expected him to be timid and eager to please, after all he's sleeping with his _boss_, but she's the one trying to coax that smile back onto his face. She manages, thrilled by the feral slant of his eyeteeth. He nips her thigh and leaves a mark. His eyes blaze and his fair skin flushes. He buries himself in her until she can't form words anymore, not even his name as she shudders in his arms.

She stays most of the night, dozing, rousing, caressing, repeating, and leaves him gleaming in the dawn light.

\+ + + +

She meets Wilson in the hotel, on neutral ground.

She can't help wishing she'd done this before, when he was living with House. She thinks about fucking him on House's couch, riding him, the leather warm and supple under her thighs and Wilson with his face buried in her breasts. Both of them waiting for the Eureka moment when House would limp in and size them up: their bare skin, their glittering eyes. She likes to think House would have come closer, stood with his erection braced against her back, his hands caressing her and Wilson's hand sliding up and up House's good thigh.

But that's a fever dream, and Wilson has talents enough on his own.

She forgets that sometimes.

They go round and round about House all the time and she forgets Wilson-the-man next to Wilson-the-ally, but in the ugly uncomfortable hotel bed, he reminds her. Wilson the lover. Wilson the pleasure seeker. Wilson with his soulful eyes wide and his pretty lip between her teeth, both of them groaning. She forgets herself wrapped up in him. She forgets all of it.

He rubs her back afterwards, Wilson the courteous. She kisses him goodbye. His smile is lopsided.

\+ + + +

And then there's House. House who fills her days with strife and plays on her nerves even in her dreams so that she wakes up with her calves cramping and her neck stiff.

Oddly enough when he's with her in her bed, not even the abrasion of stubble irritates her. He's gentle, almost tender. Hasn't got the leg to be rough, he explains, a gleam in his eye.

It's enough of an excuse. She ignores the accusation: her half-betrayal is old news, and she knows he's forgiven her. He takes his time, lingering over her breasts, breathing into the crease of her thigh until her fingers dig into the bed. _God, House, just...._

_Haste is ill-advised in this case_, he says, dragging his mouth over her belly. _Patient seems agitated. You wouldn't want me to do anything drastic._

She sighs on a rising note, her toes curling.

_For once in your damned life,_ she begins, but he twists his fingers and she ends up gasping.

_Language,_ he pretends to scold, and if it weren't House, she'd say it was a loving tone. He twists his fingers again and all thought of language disappears, even her own name. She resurfaces to consciousness beached on his chest, her skin on fire and the split of her legs a new sensation as if she's some mermaid he pulled from the brine and wrack.

It's awkward. It couldn't be otherwise, not with his leg and their history. But they work around it. House is, after all, capable of a singular attention to detail, and he's got a doggedness even Foreman will never rival. She slides down his body, unafraid of his scar. It's her scar too, her hands that signed the paperwork after Stacy's desperate scrawl even if she didn't hold the scalpel.

It wasn't like this when they were young. She has no regrets. He's still alive, her will and Wilson's dragging him through the bad times. She's still alive. He studies her like he's reading her mind.

_Flexibility is overrated,_ he mumbles, and she kisses him. He wraps one finger in her curls.

Her mother will never understand.

When she wakes up, he's still tangled in her covers, watching her.

_You're an ass,_ she says, stretching, a luxurious ache.

_I know_, he says, hiding a smile.

She turns back over and buries her face in the pillow.


End file.
